The short vowels STRUT

STRUT is a near-open central-to-front vowel . The STRUT vowel may occur syllable-finally in expressions like See ya!, or the word the used as a citation form, though even here it may be followed by [ʔ]. Word or phrase-final vowels in words like color, data, koala, structure, tuatara may be open enough to fall into the same area of the vowel chart as the STRUT vowel.

If vowels are to be paired in terms of length/tension, then in New Zealand English the STRUT vowel should be paired with the START vowel, with which it is virtually identical in terms of formant structure, resulting in a distinction primarily of length between cut and cart.

The LOT vowel is slightly more centralized than its RP congener, and could be transcribed as . There is neutralization with GOAT before coda-/l/, whether or not the /l/ is vocalized. Thus doll and dole are not distinguishable as they are in RP. For some speakers, the vowel here may be phonemically distinct from both LOT and GOAT. We refer to this above as the GOLD vowel. Note though that none of the speakers in our sample data appear to have this as a distinct vowel.

LOT cannot be easily paired with any long vowel in New Zealand English.